During the holidays, the editorial team continues its reflection on the individual and collective challenges that will shape our world in the coming years from the perspective of solutions, as far as possible. Today: youth and generational equity.
As Quebec prepares for massive retirements, the pressure will be strong on young people to take over, but also to quickly take the reins. The last time we saw so many young people taking over public space in Quebec, and with as much confidence as we had hoped, it would have given rise to the Quiet Revolution. Not bad for a little bubble of France in the north of a continent, as Yves Duteil sang.
Quebec has changed since then. But the awakening to questions of national and collective identity at the time took new forms in this globalized and dematerialized universe. Obviously, the workplace first thinks about the members of this next generation in interested terms: will they be numerous enough, trained, inventive, or on the contrary difficult, rigid, disinvested? The political community sees the potential voters: will it be able to mobilize them or will it fall prey to their disenchantment? Many fear the breakup more or less openly.
Let them rest assured. No “generational break” has prevented the world from moving into the past. It will not be any different with the rising generations. The fact remains that they face colossal challenges. Young people may study (they are more educated than previous cohorts), work (more than half of teenagers combine work and studies), and save within their means, current economic pressures are so strong that a large number of Many postpone fundamental projects such as starting a family or becoming a property owner.
Certainly, Quebec is preparing for a significant transfer of wealth in the coming years and some will greatly benefit from it. Not all of them, far from it. To the point where today we are flirting with “intergenerational inequity”, in the opinion of the number one of the Desjardins Movement, who has taken a close interest in this succession. In his speeches, Guy Cormier emphasized our shortcomings in financial education. At home, at school, but also online, where impulsiveness is king.
Data published in 2022 by the Quebec Youth Research Network Chair show that nearly one in two 21-year-olds (46.5%) considered themselves to be in debt; half of them judging themselves to be “moderately”, “very” or even “extremely” in debt. That weighs on your future, especially when inflation is spiraling out of control and the housing crisis takes hold over the long term. There is a range of government and financial assistance to be imagined to offer tailor-made solutions to this next generation on which our collective future depends.
Another key lies in the revaluation of the housing cooperative model which, in addition to promoting accessibility to a roof, helps to break isolation and promotes mutual aid. These last two aspects are not trivial in a world fractured by galloping dematerialization. This legacy, already a challenge in itself, has been poisoned by a pandemic which will have left scars.
We were rightly concerned about the declining mental health of our teenagers and young adults. It must be said that their circle of family and friends may well remain a founding agent of their awakening to the world, but it does not have the breadth or solidity that generations before knew. We must find a way to open dialogues with them, essential keys to increasing their well-being and positive mental health.
In perpetual crisis, the school has lost its hold on their minds in training in favor of algorithms which reveal themselves as powerful agents of political socialization, with all the blind spots and pitfalls that this supposes. We urgently need general meetings on education to regain the momentum that brought the Parent commission.
We must also work to humanize our online habits. These change so quickly that they make all our knowledge fragile. Our language and culture also suffer. We have some catching up to do and safety nets to tighten. All this cannot only come from young people. There is something cowardly, and even dishonest, in placing the rest of the world – and its salvation – on their shoulders alone.
Straddling all times, youth has, it is true, the duty to hear and understand those who precede them while having the obligation to make themselves heard and understood by them. However, there are struggles that should transcend generations, first and foremost the one that brings them all together, that is, that for the future of our planet. On this major project, as with the others, there is intergenerational solidarity to be built.
Ah! If youth knew, if old age could ! Cultivate a taste for action and risk, yes, but also that of consultation and dreams through mentoring and fruitful pairings. This is a program that will require us to rediscover the path to an art that we have neglected: that of listening and empathy, cornerstones of healthy societies, rich in their past, their present and their future.